The CCP is also building a surveillance state that may allow them to preemptively shut down any dissent before it gains any traction and do so in real time. Unlike most Western states there isn't even a pretense of legal or constitutional restraint. They can surveil with total impunity and more importantly use that data with total impunity. Western governments are at least constrained on the second part if not the first.

That is fucking scary. We have invented a set of technologies that could be used to create an un-overthrowable dictatorship and permanently enslave the human race... to get people to click ads.

CCP are a bunch of ignorant mediocres. Don’t give them more merit than they deserve

Why do you think that? Do you think those at the top who set the national strategy are mediocre? China's present position could not have been achieved by mediocre members.

It has been achieved thanks to the heaps of cash that the entire world has thrown at China. Part of what made it work was some good ideas "some" people at the very top had, but they've reverted those decisions and the effects are starting to show (you now need contacts in the government to start new stuff, didn't use to be the case).

Of course, with time, any approach expires. The new approach is lacking. Not surprising considering the finger-picked positions.

Do people want their freedom? For many people even today there’s a strong desire for comfort, familiarity, duty, etc over freedom. We aren’t allowed to urinate in public, even if we are careful to avoid making a mess, a health hazard, or to flash anyone - because we’ve deemed that freedom not worth the costs to comfort in walking your streets without people peeing in public. You can’t own military grade artillery anymore, you can’t curse on the radio, you can’t work as a child, you can’t purchase cigarettes under 18, you can’t even legally drive or even prove your capable of driving safely before 16 (much less vote). There’s plenty of freedoms we forgo for some degree of security and comfort, and we wanted a different balance of freedom, security, and comfort just a few years ago, or decades ago, and we’ll likely want a different balance in 10 more years. Plenty of people in 2020 were totally fine with fines and enforced curfews in light of protests, riots, and pandemic. Freedom doesn’t seem like a true north for humans

That's why I said freedom and human rights.

Certain extreme expressions of subjective human freedom can harm people more broadly. Someone building an atomic bomb in their basement is a threat to my human rights, as is a company blowing unfiltered coal smoke all over my town. Enough people emitting enough fossil CO2 globally might threaten the rights (and damage the property) of a vast number of people. Enough people refusing to vaccinate might even be a threat (though this has to be evaluated carefully), since they're increasing my odds of contracting a disease.

Balancing absolute freedom with human rights and the broader experience of liberty and prosperity is as we would say an "AI hard problem." There exists no simple set of rules that when followed will always yield a positive result. It requires a continuous input of fully engaged intelligence and a continuous deliberative political process.

What we can say is that certain things do not do this. One-party totalitarian surveillance states, grievance-based populism, fascism, or Russia-style mafia-theocracy do not do this.

It’s a layered problem:

If the economy is good, then yes.

If the circumstances are daring enough, then yes.

Otherwise no